Page 34 of My Best Friend’s Earl (Bluestocking Booksellers #2)
Admit you’re in trouble
H attie, I feel as if this entire thing slipped from my control, and I don’t know how to regain it.” Constance’s voice broke the relative silence of their bedroom. The house had long-since grown still, her parents having gone to bed over an hour before.
Gingersnap’s wheezing snores rose from the bed beside her, where he lay curled in an orange fluffy spiral in the crook of her arm.
Outside their window, London bustled with night noises. Carts on cobblestones, footsteps, and horse hooves making their distinctive clack against pavement. Occasionally a voice rang out in exclamation or laughter laced with drink.
But here in the dark, in the bed she shared with her cousin, they’d been quiet since she’d told Hattie about kissing Lord Southwyn.
Finally, Hattie spoke. “Matters of the heart are rarely within our control. I’m curious though. If you could go back and do it over, what would you do differently?”
The question made Constance furrow her brow. “You mean, what I would erase?”
“Yes. Which of your interactions with Southwyn would you choose to forget? All of them? Only a few?”
Flickers of memory played on the ceiling above her in the dark.
The first time she’d met him, back when Caro and Dorian were falling in love and they’d hunted a man who hurt Dorian’s late wife.
How he’d looked standing beside Dorian when Caro walked down the aisle.
Seeing Southwyn in Caro’s drawing room, placidly drinking tea and making polite small talk with Althea, appearing to the world like her perfect match.
Every moment of confused disgruntlement he’d tried to disguise when Constance began turning up wherever he was with Althea.
Then, the well-worn memory of that day in his study, when her heart had leapt into her throat with awareness of him.
At the breakfast table with Prince seated like the family member he’d become.
And finally, in that low-lit room at the ball. The way he’d been ready to go to war with Franklin on her behalf. A man who usually appeared so contained that he often seemed cold, had turned frantic with one kiss. Like a tamed beast reverting to its wild nature with the right provocation.
Except, she’d had no idea wildness waited beneath that starched demeanor.
Despite the many men who’d courted her, the stolen kisses, and a few sexual interludes with her former fiancé, Constance had never experienced the multitude of emotions that pounded through her during Southwyn’s kiss.
In those stolen moments, she’d also become a wild thing, all primal instinct and want.
Realization dawned but brought no comfort. “I wouldn’t want to erase a bit of it. Even though it would be easier to forget he exists. Does that make me foolish?”
“Perhaps.”
A laugh surprised her. “This would be an excellent time to lie to me, Hattie. Soften the blow, so to speak.”
Amusement laced Hattie’s voice. “You don’t come to me for comforting lies, Connie. You know better.”
“I suppose you’re right. On all counts, blast it. Life would be simpler if I could just forget Lord Southwyn entirely.”
“You can still walk away. Let Althea sort this out herself. It sounds like she’s planning a way out with her beau.
At the end of the day, it’s their life, not yours.
You can avoid them entirely, should you decide that’s what you want.
If they visit the store, I’ll serve them.
If your heart is at risk—and it sounds like it is—perhaps that’s the best path. ”
Instant denials and counterarguments rose, but Constance bit them back. Hattie was always the voice of truth and reason. Dismissing her insight would be pure folly. “I’ll think about it.”
A moment later, Hattie said, “I assume the coat I found in your wardrobe belongs to him?”
Connie closed her eyes against the embarrassing thought of Hattie spying the way she’d been sniffing it. He just smelled so damn good. What else was a girl to do in her situation? “Yes. He wrapped me in it, then sent me home. Althea retrieved my cloak for me.”
“She really is a sharp one,” Hattie commented. “I have to ask. Are you in love with him, Connie?”
Swallowing became an effort, and the resulting gulping would have been comical if it hadn’t come from her. As it was, Connie barely managed a quiet “I don’t know.”
What did she know about such things? After making it all the way to the church on her wedding day, she’d run.
While it was the right decision in the end, before that point, Connie had thought she loved Walter.
When doubts rose, she’d pushed them aside, blithely confident in her choice of husband. Until she wasn’t.
She realized now, that wasn’t love.
Running away from a church where Southwyn awaited her inside was unimaginable.
Before Walter there’d been a long line of interested men whom she’d enjoyed, considered, then ultimately rejected.
Just like there were bits and bobs around the house and store from hobbies she’d dived into headfirst, then lost interest in after a while.
Yarn from knitting. Paints from the summer she’d taken up watercolors.
Easily a dozen books on various topics she’d added to the lending library collection in the store once they no longer tickled her fancy.
She’d made the quilt they were under that very minute—they’d used it for three years, even though the edges weren’t finished.
Mum finally took care of those final touches, since the abandoned project had long since ceased to exist in Constance’s brain.
Caro’s methodical drive enabled her to write and publish books often enough that her readers stayed enthralled.
Hattie was steady, the logical rock of their little trio.
She was content to keep her head down and live a quiet life.
Constance flitted from one thing to another, like a honeybee gathering nectar.
Except, at the end of the day, she had knitting needles and half-finished paintings to show for her efforts, rather than sweet honey.
Tomorrow she might awaken to a world where the Earl of Southwyn no longer had a hold on her affections.
Perhaps she’d keep the memories but walk away from this aching desire coiled within her that focused entirely on him.
It seemed impossible right now, but she’d thought herself in love before, hadn’t she?
Except, a calm sort of certainty coalesced within her when considering the validity of her feelings. That emotional oasis whispered in a quietly confident voice that if given the chance, loving Southwyn would be different.
Oh, God. She might be falling in love with him. Honesty drove her to amend her answer to Hattie’s question. “Maybe.”
“Whatever I’m paying you lot, it isn’t enough.
” Oliver stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the scullery.
A veritable army of maids bustled about, their mobcaps wilting in the humidity of the room.
The overall damp stemmed from the giant copper cauldron giving off steam as it boiled a mountain of fabric.
Maxine, the head washerwoman, crossed her arms. Years of exposure to hot water and lye soap had turned the skin up to her elbows red.
“An offer of a raise, and the lord of the house wantin’ to wash his own sheets.
Is this a holiday, milord?” While the jest was genuine, it came with a healthy dose of concern that Oliver might have lost his damn mind.
“I appreciate your willingness to teach me this skill.” He watched as a slender maid stirred the copper pot with a sturdy wood paddle as tall as she was.
Maxine’s laugh cracked through the air, drawing attention from three other maids before they continued their business. “I’ll teach you everything you need, never fear. Better to know how to do a thing, even if you never have to do it again, am I right?”
Rolling his shirtsleeves to the elbow, Oliver nodded. “The purpose of this exercise, summarized quite succinctly.”
“It’s ready, your lordship.” The maid at the kettle lifted the bedding from the boiling water with the paddle, then slapped the sheet onto a nearby surface. Jesus, she really was stronger than she looked.
Maxine passed Oliver a boar-bristle brush, the likes of which he usually associated with grooming horses. “Let’s get to work, milord.”
Lye soap burned at his palms, as did the temperature of the linen. Oliver held his tongue except to ask questions, and followed Maxine’s directions as he scrubbed all evidence of his embarrassing incident from the bedding.
Since losing control so thoroughly in that storeroom with Constance—it seemed disingenuous to think of her as Miss Martin in the privacy of his mind, given what he did to her in that private space—he’d thought it best to return to his previous morning regimen.
It felt like Tuesday had been seventy years ago.
Today, his body took matters into its own hands, so to speak, and he’d awoken with wet sheets.
He hadn’t ejaculated in his sleep since he was a green lad.
Without thinking it through, Oliver had sprung from bed, tearing at the bedding until it was a pile on his floor.
Using the ewer of water and his shaving soap, he must have resembled Lady Macbeth, with her wails of “out, damned spot” as he’d tried to clean the semen from his sheets and forget the erotic dream that inspired it.
Which might have been enough, until he realized the scented oils from his shaving soap were leaving marks of their own on the fabric. Thus, a morning spent in the scullery with a laundress who now thought him an “odd duck.”
He wasn’t supposed to overhear that, but with his cheeks burning and every nerve on alert from embarrassment, the whispers in the room might as well have been shouts to his ears.
It was better than the alternative. He’d rather they believe him fancifully indulging in maid’s work, like Queen Marie Antoinette milking cows at Versailles, than they know he’d shot off like a firework in his sleep due to a certain dimpled blonde.